I recently purchased a Peavey PV-14 USB mixing board. It has (as the name suggests) 14 mic/instrument inputs, each of which with it’s own EQ and blah blah blah. I imagine that most of the people on this forum will know what all a mixing board, regardless the make, will have on it.
My one issue is this: despite having multiple mic inputs, I don’t actually know how to setup Audacity to record separate tracks for each input. I’ve tried searching through the forum on how to set it up, but the most I found was a response that said only that there needed to be multiple input ports.
Does anyone know how to setup Audacity so it will record multiple, yet separate, tracks at the same time (say for a full band recording or drum setup)?
If you go to the Prefererences dialogue box (Edit/Preferences in 1.2) and click on the “Audio I/O” tab - in the section marked “Recording” you will see a dropdown box marked “Channels” - use this to change to the number of channels you require.
That device only outputs a Stereo signal. This is a limitation with most USB devices, the bandwidth is too small for that much info. Generally FireWire products can do this though, but you’ll have to do careful research to be sure.
Basically that mixer is only useful for live sound or ‘direct to 2-track’ recordings. I hope you can return it.
Hi,
I have the same problem. I have a Mackie Onyx pre-amp with fire wire and have had no luck recording simultaneous multiple tracks. I only get an error message telling me to check my device settings. It only works if I have it set for one channel mono, and I can only record one track at a time. I’ve been trying lots of different settings but no dice.
I get the same error message when I try and use the pre-amp for monitoring, even though the onyx appears as an option for audio output in audacity’s preferences.
For that Mackie, the first thing you need to do is make sure you’re not using ASIO drivers. The company that controls those patents won’t let the Audacity devteam release the code for using them. It looks like Mackie supplies WDM drivers though, so that’s a good sign.
Once that’s straightened out, it’s up to the drivers to provide the right input for Audacity. It looks like the Mackie drivers only provide each channel as a separate device. I can’t say for certain if that’s the case, but I do know that Audacity can’t use more than one recording device at once.
My 8 channel M-Audio card is setup the way it needs to be, it provides each stereo pair as it’s own device, but also provides a device called ‘Delta 1010LT Multi’ that I can use to access all 8 channels at once. I have a feeling that the Mackie drivers haven’t been written the same way.
What sources are listed in the Recording Device drop down menu? Is each channel listed separately? If you don’t mind, write out the sources listed there and we can have a better idea of what’s going on.
Does it work if you set it to channel #1 and try to use multiple channels?
I have no clue about “ASIO” or “WDM” drivers, sorry, but i’ll look into it. Right now I’m in the process of updating to the latest Onyx firmware/software.
When I open Audacity’s recording device drop down menu it lists “built in input” “built in microphone” and “onyx 400f”. It lists “channels”:1(mono), 2(stereo), 3, 4…16.
When I set it for 1 channel it just records off of the Onyx channel 1, even when I have multiple mics plugged in.
If I set it for 2(stereo) or 3, 4 etc channels I get the error message.
I might try the Audacity beta.
Maybe updating the Onyx drivers will work, but I’m not holding my breath. It’s too bad, because audacity is perfect for me. I’ll continue to use it for single channel recording regardless.
BTW
The mackie software is a “console”, which looks like a virtual mixing board, with faders, pans, etc for each channel. You can set those controls and the interface will remember them so that you can record without a computer if you want to. It also has a settings page where you set the sample rate, clock source, virtual mixer on/off, headphone source, and SPDIF format. When using a DAW I turn the mixer off. So far I’ve tried the Mackie with Traktion(lots of problems) Garageband(works flawlessly), and Audacity. Would the clock source make a difference? I’ve never messed with that.
In Garageband all 10 of the mackie channels are available to be assigned to a track.
Don’t worry about ASIO drivers, if you can get one channel to record then you’re not using ASIO drivers. Nothing would work if you were.
So Audacity only lists the Onyx400f as one single source? It might help to go through your OS’s Audio Setup software. You might also get some help from Mackie, I’d imagine this is a question they get often.
I doubt Auadacity Beta will help you, but go ahead and try it, you might like it better for other reasons.